Rookie Roundup – Ouch…

Every two weeks I’ll give a little recap of what our youngsters are up to, how they looked, and what to expect.

*Sigh*…

Much has changed since I last wrote about our young heroes. Since Monday the 9th the Cavs have gone 2-5, including two abysmally bad loses, and the team as a whole has looked very, very off. We’ve seen some half decent efforts (Thompson’s last game, against Atlanta) and some terrible ones (TT’s game the day before, against the Bulls)

The point is, it’s been a rough two weeks. Much of that is related to the shooting woes of Sessions and Gibson, and the on and off play of Jamison, but I think our two rookies had quite a bit to do with it – lets take a deeper look:

Thompson:

My honeymoon period with Thompson is over; I can tell you that with certainty. I still like his game and think he can be good in the future, but I’m no longer the naive, starry-eyed boy I once was with him. Thompson’s power and athletiscism is great – it’s fun and exciting to watch and yields one or two WOW! plays a game. But beyond the entertainment factor, there’s not a whole lot to love. He constantly looks confused on defense, and relies purely on his athleticism to stop his man, which pretty much killed him against the Bulls, who have big guys who know how to move in the post. While his D rebounding has gone up to around 3 a game (which is about a half a rebound better) I really don’t think they’re pure skill rebounds – he’s not great at boxing out and it almost looks like he has to struggle to get himself into D rebounding position at times. His defensive rebound rate is 19.6 which isn’t wretched, but isn’t high enough for a guy who doesn’t do much more than that (and block shots) on D – it puts him at about 80th in the league. Obviously, as our mantra goes, he’s young and he’ll learn, but 15 games in, we’ve seen little growth on the defensive side. On a bright note, though, he’s still a blocking machine, and it couldn’t be more fun to watch him leap up and swat a ball.

What really concerns me, though, is his offense. While he’s still great at doing what he’s always done (facing the basket and throwing it down with authority) he hasn’t really shown much improvement in the post, which is critically important, particularly for a guy his size who won’t be able to use pure power against the Dwight Howards and Andrew Bynums of the NBA. At the rim, TT is shooting a good 57% (especially for a guy who spends most of his time in the paint), but at just 3-9 feet away, his numbers drop to 38.2%, meaning our guy has a lot of learning to do even just a few feet away from the hoop.

I do think Thompson has a ton of upside (I’m still excited!!!) but the few game grace period is over – it’s time to start nitpicking and looking for improvement.

Irving:

Now here’s where I’m really concerned. Kyrie’s D has looked pretty stinking bad recently. He got torched regularly by Watson in the Bulls game, and was equally inept against the likes of Nate Robinson and D.J. Augustin. It’s not that he’s playing the worst D in the league or anything, but considering the high expectations we had for him, and even giving him a little leeway because he’s a rookie, to say his defense has been a disappointment up to this point is an understatement. Consider this: according to Basketball Reference, Kyrie’s offensive rating, the amount of points his team would score with him on the floor given 100 possessions, vs his defensive rating, the number of points the other team would score with him on the floor given 100 possessions, is 106 to 107, meaning his team is being outscore while he plays. And considering the amount of offense Kyrie has been producing, that’s pretty startling. There are times where he flashes some great speed chasing someone down the court, or making a nice cut off move to the basket, but he’s regularly struggled off the pick and roll, and his lateral movement doesn’t seem to be where it should considering his scouting report. Hopefully this is rookie malaise, but it’s definitely something to keep a close eye on as the season progresses.

On offense, Kyrie is still his stellar shooting self. I won’t harp on the numbers too much, but he’s averaging a nice 17.4% shooting at 50% in under 30 minutes. That’s amazing efficient scoring (his true shooting % is about 6 points above league average too, which is nice.) That being said, it’s not all fantastic on offense. Quite frankly, Kyrie has had some serious issues passing the ball. His turnover numbers are terrible – almost four a game at under 30 minutes – and his turnover % is 19.4 which puts him farther down the list than I was hoping, considering how highly regarded his passing skills and decision making were. I’m not sure if it’s the pace of the game that’s causing him to make mistakes (the Cavs play the 6th fastest in the NBA, with 93.5 possessions per game) or if he’s just trying to do too much. Whatever the case, lets hope he can cutdown the turnovers and raise his assists average.

I’ve been harsh, I know, but it’s really not all bad. We have two young players, one who has definite star potential and another whose natural born athletic abilities could make even the most pessimistic smile, and our future looks bright. As long as they improve, I see very good things coming!

Hopefully in two weeks I’ll get to talk about Mychal Thompson.

Until then, enjoy the Cavs!

16 Responses to “Rookie Roundup – Ouch…”

The first team cavs are not a great “D” team in general. I would hate to put all that on Kyrie. There is a certain highest payed player on the team who D is poop at best and his offense has been just as stinky.

also AP has been pretty terrible this year. He hasn’t played good D or made a decent amount of shots. Casspi is a terrible man defender and so is jamison. so 1-4 are bad defenders right now. That doesnt bode well for Kyrie if he has 3 other bad defenders in his lineup. not that we could get better. Boobie is too small to be a great defender at the 2 (although he is certainly a very capable defender) and alonzo gee is still not a very good player.

As for Kyrie’s offense, he dribbles the ball too high and lets it get away from him too much. He is used to playing high school ball where a tight dribble didnt matter. Even in college (all 11 games) keeping the ball low didnt matter nearly as much as it does in the pros. Once he starts to get his dribble lower we will see better results turnover wise. And honestly I think it would help his scoring numbers more than his assist numbers, but thats just me.

I think the dribbling is only part of the issue, really. Because the pace is pushed so high with Cavs, Kyrie looks for a quick pass, which often leads to him throwing it into a man in the middle of traffic. I agree that he does let his own dribbling get away from him at times, but that’s really only a small part of a much bigger problem of pace.

Hold your horses on Defensive Rating. It has nothing to do with “while he’s on the floor”. It’s a painfully simple formula, actually. Per Dean Oliver’s book, you get credit for “stops”; blocks, steals, and defensive rebounds.

After those credits you share equal burden for your team’s overall defensive rating, weighted by the number of minutes you’ve played. I’ve simplified the formula but you get the idea. In that sense the stat is totally blind to what the true circumstances were.

Especially for guards, you can have a great perimeter defender who always stays in front of his man, never misses a rotation, contests every shot, but doesn’t record blocks/Dreb’s/steals. If he plays for a bad defensive team (like the Cavs) his defensive rating will not reflect his quality as a defensive player, especially if the team has a certain player named… ANTAWN JAMISON.

All that said, I’ve seen Irving get burned many times by his man. Just don’t judge him by that 107– it gets black marks every time Jamison craps himself in the paint. Stick with the eye test, which may or may not yield similar conclusions.

R – I definitely agree with you that Jamison plays into that defensive rating, but we’re talking strictly about Irving in this article, and I think it’s worth noting that, while he’s on the floor, the team does suffer some because of his lack of D. Whenever he lets a man go around him, it’s not just him that suffers, the team does because of the need for an interior man to collapse onto the driving player, which, inevitably leaves someone else open. No other statistic covers such broad situations, which is why I used it. Furthermore, Irving doesn’t play every single minute with Jamison (just most) and in some games Jamison actually does play passable (albeit unremarkable) defense, so I think the rating still serves its purpose of highlighting, on a large scale, how Irving impacts the defensive side.

I decided to check out Jamison’s defensive rating. Interestingly enough, his is actually lower – 104. His offensive rating is lower as well – 99, but I’m sure that’s largely indebted to the fact that Ramon Sessions and Boobie Gibson have played poorly, and they’re the ones who most likely replace Irving. Anyway, the point is Irving’s defensive rating is definitely noteworthy, particularly because, as I said, he’s supposed to be a good defender. He isn’t playing with the second unit of Erden and Thompson, and he’s had his fair share of minutes with Boobie, so he definitely has the pieces to at least rate higher than he does currently.

Did you seriously say Gibson has played poorly? Besides Andy, he has been the one consistent GOOD defender. His overall FG% may be down but his 3pt% and his FT% are above his career averages. Sessions has been the only one subbing Kyrie. Gibson has played at the 2 all year.

The only way you can look at Off Rating vs Def Rating of one player is if you compare it to the overall team’s Off Rating vs. Def Rating with him off the floor and see if those numbers are better or worse. You can’t just compare it to one other player and especially not one from a different position. If the team’s Off Rating is lower when he’s off the floor, that means he benefits the team on offense. If the team’s Def rating is higher with him off the floor, he aids the defense. That’s the only way to compare.

Individual Offensive rating is a number that reflects the points produced by a player per 100 possessions used. As R notes, these ratings were developed by Dean Oliver and o-rating is really complex. It takes into account a players shooting, o-rebounds, turnovers and assists, but also the passing, shooting, and rebounding on his teammates.

It is only really viewed properly in conjunction with usage and probably also league average rating. Three-point specialists typically have very high offensive ratings, as high as 130, but their usage is low, like 10 – 15. Irving’s o-rating of 106, compared to league average this year around 103, while using 29% of the Cavs possessions is pretty good. So Irving is able to handle almost 1/3 of the offensive work load and produce points at a slightly above average ability. I’ll take that all day from a 19 year old.

Also as R notes, d rating is not very worthwhile (like most defensive stats). It is almost completely dependent on team performance. The best defender on a bad defensive team is often rated worse than the worst defender on a good offensive team. For instance, this year d-rating would tell you that Anderson Varejao and Darren Collison are equal as defenders.

Kyrie definitely needs to improve his defense, but d-rating doesn’t tell you much along those lines.

But Clearly Steve Kerr wasn’t robbed of the MVP that year. Of the 13% of the Bull’s possessions that he used, he was producing 141 points per 100 possessions. Michael Jordan used 33% of the Bull’s possessions, which combined with a 124 rating, is the type of thing that makes you the greatest player of all time.

I think Kyrie gets gassed out there and saves his energy for the offensive side of the floor. How many times when there is a break in play do you see him leaning over, holding his knees, huffing and puffing? Maybe he has unusually small lungs for a man of his height.

I think his defense will improve as his body becomes fully acclimated. And the turnovers don’t bother me too much as his errant passes usually come in the flow of the game and always seem to be just a hair off target. But they are typically “smart” passes.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Kaman at a Harley Davidson rally in Cleveland. Dude must have some stories.

My trade? Jamison for Eddie Gaedel and a broom.

I like Irving a lot, but I’m not expecting him to become a superstar. My ceiling for him is Terrell Brandon’s 1997 All-Star year, where he averaged 19.5 and 6 assists during Mike Slowtello’s walk it up offense.

I completely agree with Dave. We need to move players like Jamison (and probably Razor) for future pieces, I don’t think Kaman is that.

As far as Kyrie’s defense goes, amazingly no one really seems to have been able to create an actual decent defensive rating or stat to measure how good an individual player is on that end of the floor. We still really kinda have to rely on the eye test. What the eye test tells me is that Kyrie sucks badly on defense…

but anyone who thought that a 19 year who never got a chance to get used to the speed and strength of the college game was gonna go In-His-Prime Ron Artest on the league is just being silly. Rookies struggle defensively. The only positive I can see here is that he looks genuinely mad at himself when he screws up his assignment. From a 19 year old rookie who still needs to add about 20 lbs of NBA muscle, I’ll honestly take that.

Don’t know how to break this to you. No one is trading for Jamison at $15 million per, without sending back a worse contract, unless it’s a contending team with a guy in the last year of his contract who’s hurt, who also makes 10 million+. That describes about 2 teams in the league. Buyout or nothing.

Tristan Thompson is exactly as described: a pogo stick who can’t shoot. He’s from Toronto. Maybe we can talk them into trading big V.

The Lineup: (Click for Author’s Archive)

Nate Smith is an Associate Editor. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and moved to NE Ohio in 2000. He adopted the Cavs in 2003 and graduated from Kent State in 2009 with a BA in English. He can be contacted at oldseaminer@gmail.com or @oldseaminer on Twitter.

Tom Pestak is an Associate Editor. He's from the west side of Cleveland and lives and (mostly) dies by the success and (mostly) failures of his beloved teams. You can watch his fanaticism during Cavs games @tompestak.

Robert Attenweiler is a Staff Writer. Originally from OH, he's long made his home in NYC where he writes plays and screenplays (www.disgracedproductions.com) some of which end up being about Ohio, basketball or both. He has also written for The Classical and the blog Raising the Cadavalier. You can contact him at rattenweiler@gmail.com or @cadavalier.

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